Customer Reviews

Old Friend from Far Away: How to Write a Memoir

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I feel as if I know Natalie!
After all, I have listened to all of her writing workshops and read most of her books. How cool is it to listen to a "Writing Workshop" while taking a walk in your neighborhood!?
And to listen to Natalie's (New York-Minnesota-New Mexico accent!) Loooove her.

"Old Friend from Far Away" is wonderful. Natalie gives the writer many ideas about how to get that pen moving, how to write that first sentence..."Write... I remember. My first kiss. My favorite meal is. My father was. My worse food. My favorite river."

And Details... People are really interested. Not the flower...what kind of flower. Not red...Ruby, cranberry, rose.

Get it???!!!!!! And what is Natalie's most amazing advice????

WRITING PRACTICE. If you know anything about Natalie, you would have realized that.

She reads to us from some of her favorite authors and poets. She says that "Ballad of the Sad Cafe" by Carson Mccullers is the reason she became a writer. She says that we need to name things... Spanish olive, Oak tree, Buttercup. Isn't that more concrete than olive, tree, flower!!????

Natalie tells us to get going, write, pick up the pen. And practice, practice, practice!!!!!!!

Well, what are you waiting for?!!!

It's easy to get hooked on Natalie Goldberg and it's not always easy to say why. In her Long Island accent -- not much changed by living in Minnesota and New Mexico -- she delivers wry commentary on writing much as I'd imagine a zen master lecturing a favorite student. She can be tough and demanding but she clearly loves her students. And she's very open about her own life, in and out of writing.

There's an old saying that we like someone better after we learn their flaws. I listened to Old Friends, ostensibly about writing a memoir, after reading Natalie Goldberg's own story of her two great teachers, her father and her zen master. It's a nice combination. Here Natalie Goldberg comes across as warmer and easier to know than in Thunder and Lightning and she drops hints about her own struggles, self-accepting as well as self-deprecating. For instance, it's clear that Goldberg has some bad karma about cars -- and here she adds an anecdote about failing a driving test on a freezing Minnesota morning when she went wrong way on a one-way street. None of these car stories seem to bother her as much as they'd bother me or most people I know!

In the end, Old Friend is less about writing memoir than about getting motivated to write and spending time with Natalie Goldberg. Sure, we get lots of exercises that could lead to a memoir: "I remember..." and, "Biggest mistakes I made..." but these exercises could also lead to a novel or even a nonfiction self-help book. Mostly her enthusiasm and her examples would make almost anyone grab a pen and paper and start writing -- now! . She captures the excitement of conquering a blank page and really engaging with ideas, using writing to grow our minds.

I'd recommend this CD to anyone who wants to write, who's struggling with a blank page, who's gotten jaded and frustrated and wondering why bother. That's almost anybody who writes, probably. And I'd recommend the CD to anyone who doesn't especially want to write but just maybe wants to try. And of course I'd recommend the CD to anyone who's met Natalie Goldberg and wants to spend another couple of hours with her, sharing the journey.

Postscript: I live in southwestern New Mexico, so people always ask if I live near Natalie Goldberg. She's about eight hours away up in Taos where they get tons more snow than we do! Some days she probably thinks she's back in Minnesota.

This book is also available in audio format. ISBN 1564559599.

Several years ago I read Natalie Goldberg's book, Writing Down the Bones, and was pleased to see in an ad in a weekly Toronto newspaper that a couple of women were starting a writing group based on Natalie's teachings. That meant we would do timed writings and make sure we kept our hands moving with fast-writing pens. There were about 17 people the first night we met. The two sisters who began the group were very enthused as they had just returned from a workshop with Natalie in New Mexico. I don't think we ever saw the sisters again after that first meeting, and the group kept dwindling. It stayed at about six for a while, and then we became four women who met weekly for about two years. It was wonderful support for our writing. Although we've gone our separate ways now, I do keep in touch with one of the women so she has become an "old friend from far away."

I'm such a fan of books, not just for the reading of them but for the tactile nature of them, their design, smell and companionship while they wait in the pile to be read. I can make margin notes and underline in books. With a cassette or a CD that's a bit difficult, although you can certainly make notes. And make notes I did. Natalie Goldberg speaks as if she's talking to you from across the table. Those people at Sounds True sure know how to get their authors to sound natural, as if they're talking to you, not as if they're reading a script. I know Natalie is used to inspiring people at workshops, but talking to an unseen audience into a microphone is rather different.

I highly recommend this set of cassettes. Natalie's voice is soothing--a blend of America (Long Island, Minnesota, New Mexico), France and Japan. Her chuckles are contagious. The writing prompts wake up the details of many memories. They stimulate the senses and are a great way to get to that big story we want to write. Listening to the tapes is having your own coach who, although she knows you're already writing, can give you some fresh insight--for the writing process as well as the writing life.

We carry those old friends from far away inside us. That's why we have a desire to write about those memories and keep them alive. As Natalie points out, we don't want to be alone with the memories, we want to share them. The writing becomes a way of letting go. Even when we're writing about abuse, the act of putting our stories on paper, expressing ourselves, not silencing ourselves, is a very positive act. Saying who we really are, how we see, think and feel. Finally, and this is a new insight for me, being fully alive before we die so we can meet our death full heartedly.

Elizabeth Ehrlich's Miriam's Kitchen and Vivian Gornick's Fierce Attachments are among the excerpts Natalie reads as examples of larger stories contained in the exquisite details of everyday life. She reminds us to name the trees as beings who surround us, such as those of her beloved New Mexico: sage, pinon and cottonwood. "When you know the name of something," Natalie says, "it wakes you up to it." And who wants to read the details of your ordinary life? Be confident that if they filled your world, they will fill someone else's, she assures.

There are lots of entry points for writing. As Natalie suggests in her book, Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft, keep doing this turning over of memories for two years before you look at the structure. She reminds us to continue under all circumstances. To not be "tossed away" by other distractions. To keep writing and not forget who we are and where we are going.

Natalie Goldberg lives in northern New Mexico where she teaches most of her writing workshops (based on her best-seller Writing Down the Bones) at Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos. Natalie Goldberg--Jewish daughter and Zen master, writer, poet and painter. Old friend from far away.

by Mary Ann Moore
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviewsorg
reviewing books by, for, and about women

This is a fabulous jumpstart for anyone wanting to write memoir, and a cornucopia of exercises to get your memory working and your life flowing onto the page. I find myself hearing Natalie's voice in my everyday life, laughing at a poignant moment that deserves to be written down, talking to me when I'm sleeping, saying something about the moment that helps me retain the moment when I wake up. Powerful friends live in this publication, and I'm grateful for their teachings.

This audio was a joy to listen to. I feel so motivated to continue writing my memoir. I took notes, but more than that I listened to Natalie's voice and felt encouraged. (Her voice made me homesick with her pronounced New York accent).She gives examples of other authors' memoirs as well as her own. She helped me keep going with my own story, which I stopped when the going got tough. Writing is the easiest activity in the world to procrastinate (easier to start a diet!) But I found myself welcomed and my life's story valued by listening to her. If you want a shot in the arm or a gentle nudge, to motivate your writing, get this tape. Thanks, Natalie!!